Fiddlesticks
by Basil to Blithe
Summary: When Harry makes a spirited attempt to give that dastardly prophecy the old what for by possessing his infant self and killing his own parents, James turns out to be less than cooperative. What a bother!
1. Chapter 1

**Oh, enough with the good deeds.**

_Not mine etc. and so forth._

* * *

"Please try to be reasonable, James," Harry called tiredly, peeking through a lattice of cold iron. Enchanting his own voice had been trying, and it had taken some time before negotiations could proceed beyond gurgles and coos.

"What have you done with my son, Voldemort?" James shouted from inside the study behind his own transfigured barricade, desperately trying to unravel a moderately unpleasant curse he'd been clipped with earlier, which had resulted in this lull in hostilities.

"Again, I'm not Voldemort-"

"Bullshit!"

"I've already told you, James. I'm here to help. I need to kill you and Lily so that I can break the prophecy," Harry explained patiently. This was a point that James seemed to be having trouble with.

"You're fucking crazy!"

"James, please. Just step out here so I can kill you for a little while. You won't feel a thing, and before you know it I'll have you up on your feet and wondering why you were so upset in the first place."

Harry frowned as he heard James either snap and begin to gibber to himself or start reciting more ancient family magic. How much such magic did James know? Too bloody much, in his opinion.

"Have I ever lied to you?" he wheedled, "have I ever demanded that you change clean nappies? I assure you that I have been raised to be a baby of character and integrity. I wouldn't ask this of you if it weren't absolutely necessary."

If Harry wasn't mistaken, James was now just about ready to have another go at him. This was most vexing. His mother had been easy enough, he'd managed to kill her with her own wand in the kitchen. Then, taking pains not to be noticed, he had dragged and levitated her cooling body into his play room for safe keeping. His father, unfortunately, had a sixth sense for danger and had survived all attempts on his life since waking. Including the poisoned coffee.

He'd been certain the poisoned coffee would do the trick. Damned Potter luck.

"James, if that's another brass lion you're transfiguring in there I will be very cross with you." Harry sing-songed, hearing the distinctive clack of metal on wood.

An ear splitting roar sounded through Godric's Hollow, and an entire _pride_ of brass lions clawed their way through the halls of the Potter residence, all of them heading directly for his warded and heavily transfigured playpen.

"Oh, fiddlesticks." Harry muttered, and with a gurgling coo he levitated his pen and ran as fast as his stubby baby legs could carry him.

* * *

"Bloody brass-" DONG "-bloody lions-" BONG, CRASH! "-James-" BONG! "-bloody Potter," Harry groused, watching the constructs scrabble at the entrances they'd torn through the walls and ceiling of his newly fortified playroom. They were making headway, but he had enough magic left to erect physical shields to stop them.

"Besieged by my own father in my own house, on the day of my own attempted assassination. Just bloody brilliant."

"Had enough, Voldemort?"

I am not Voldemort, you twit! I'm here to help!" he shouted.

"_Avada Kedavra_," he tossed out the doorway after having said his piece, and heard his father shout something unkind in return before the spell fizzled audibly. Probably a wall, but perhaps he'd gotten lucky.

"Oi, are you dead? Are you finally dead?"

"I will end you!" James replied spiritedly.

Harry groaned in disappointment and performed a counter transfiguration on one of the brass lions, turning it into a confused brass stag.

"Serves you right," he said viciously, listening of the squeak of brass teeth and claws on brass fur.

A warning shimmer followed by a deafening bang cause him to duck unnecessarily under a rune carved cannon ball that shot through the doorway at waist height and blew clean through his crib and the far wall, destroying the wards he'd placed in the process and forcing Harry to begin casting in earnest to defend himself from the lions that slipped through.

He managed to eject the last lion from his perimeter and reactivate the bulk of his defenses just in time, as James, -no doubt, he thought, sitting cozily behind his own hastily erected wards- had followed up by turning the house into a flour bomb and setting it off.

The explosion was tremendous, and when the smoke wafted away both Potter Senior and Junior were left staring at each other from what remained of their chosen bastions. Harry, using his mother's corpse to prop himself up higher to look through a lion induced hole in his wall, and James, glaring through a portion of his study that was probably just enchanted to be transparent. Neither of their rooms had ceilings any more, a sign that they'd both failed to account for concerted attacks from above.

"That was completely unnecessary, James," Harry chided him, wiping soot from his face.

"Fuck you!"

Harry made a mou of distaste at his father's cripplingly small lexicon. Even as a student he'd never felt the need to resort to such banal obscenities.

"Now, as I mentioned earlier, Lilly will be fine. She's just dead, not lost in the nether dimensions. I can bring her back as soon as you just come out into the open and take your _Avada Kedavra_ like a man."

James watched the green spell shoot toward him and expire on the very much enchanted wall in front of his face.

"Sorry, that was low. But I had to try," Harry apologized, "we're running short on time and you've made this awfully difficult."

James responded by launching the magical equivalent of a mortar shell at his room. The spell bounced off a purple dome of energy and went careening off the property to explode somewhere in the valley. Harry, at least, had been prepared for such an eventuality.

"You know," Harry shouted in exasperation, "if you'd fought Voldemort this hard the first time around I wouldn't have found it necessary to do this!"

James began to swear at him in German.

"If it makes you feel any better, you'd have died today anyway. Peter is a death eater!"

German gave way to Gaelic, and Harry felt a sinking feeling in his stomach when he noticed a number of his father's damned brass lions slinking back out of the darkness, quite unharmed by the explosion.

Perhaps it was just gas, he considered. Had his mother burped him properly that morning?

No, no, it was definitely despair, he decided, seeing more lions unearth themselves from the rubble.

His little baby body just didn't have room for the magical power he was accustomed to, and he was paying for it. James had, for the most part, fought with the intention of preserving his child and wife's bodies. Had he not, Harry wouldn't have been more than a smear, and now James had cornered him.

He stepped off his mother's corpse and regarded it unhappily.

This was not going well.

Perhaps he should have killed _her_ second. He really hadn't thought that James had been much of a fighter, considering the poor showing he'd exhibited against Voldemort on their final meeting. So much for hindsight. This must have been an off day.

Click, clack.

The pride of brass lions, plus one visibly distraught stag, surrounded his wards.

"Nothing smart to say, you bastard?" James asked.

"Your pea mash was disgusting!" Harry retorted, after some thought.

And with that brilliant comment, Fort Harry came crashing down.

* * *

Harry looked at the stars sourly from between the frozen paws of a lion as he listened to the steady crunch of his father's approaching boots. His mother's wand was now well out of reach, this was no ambush.

This was a stupid plan from the start, he decided. He had no one but himself to blame. Still, if he was plenty lucky his father would cast the killing curse at him and that would be that. Not quite as neat as what he'd intended, but it could do. He wouldn't be around to ensure everything didn't go entirely sour, but at least the prophecy's protections would be out of the way.

That counted for a lot. Without the prophecy the world wouldn't have just one potential hero. It would have millions. The Fates might even burst into tears and leave everyone alone for once.

Crunch, crunchity crunch.

The man who came into view was a wreck. His face was bloodied, gaunt and sunken, and his robes were tattered. He stooped over Harry like a wraith.

"Why?" he croaked. "Why did you take my son?"

Harry smiled toothlessly. "Because he couldn't win."

James' eyes flared incandescent, and he grabbed the body of his child by the throat and hoisted it aloft.

A red light illuminated them both, and James dropped like a puppet. Harry landed painfully on his arm, wheezing.

"I never took James Potter for a kinslayer, but here we are," Lord Voldemort murmured to himself, stepping over a ridge in the rubble to observe them.

'Oh bloody hell, thought Harry, here we go. Please have missed the talking baby bits. Please have missed the-

"I think I'll let you live, Potter," Voldemort said almost jovially, "for however long you have, after creating so many marvelous beasts of war in your insanity." He patted one of the unmoving brass lions admiringly and walked toward them.

-thank bloody goodness. He'd missed the talking baby bits. Pity he hadn't killed James properly while the man was distracted. A fine pickle this was.

"But the child must die."

Harry caught his father's glazed eyes. The man was stunned, but not quite completely insensible.

He thought it would be safe to say goodbye.

"Dada," he said fondly, and marveled at the look of love that his father gave him, thinking his baby boy had returned somehow. It would have been so nice to live with this man, but now they were both going to die for sure. A pity.

So it was that when Voldemort cast the first killing curse, James Potter moved to block it for the sake of his only son.

* * *

Harry's only consolation, as he used some of his last magic to clumsily carve open Lilly's body with a lion's dislodged claw, was that he really could bring them back. At the trivial expense of one floating rib apiece, even! . . . And maybe some insignificant portion of their souls.

The latter half of the journal he'd cribbed the ritual from hadn't been terribly legible and made frequent mention of "The Eyes That Watch" or some similar nonsense. Presumably the author had been driven mad. Harry wasn't impressed. He had eyes that watched too. _In his head_. If matters somehow devolved into a sort of bizarre optical pissing match he could always acquire more and wear them as a necklace.

Harry sighed, and the brass stag nuzzled him as gently as a transfigured war machine could, which wasn't very. He kept hacking away at her flesh. This would have been much easier if James hadn't gone and blown the kitchen, and all the knives, into low orbit.

Actually, "Accio steak knife."

Fie. And he couldn't afford to waste the energy to transfigure or conjure a knife, either.

The things he put up with for the sake of family.

Damn the Potter luck that had kept his father alive long enough to bugger up his plans.

A drop of water landed on his nose, causing him to scrunch it up at the sensation.

Now it was bloody raining, too?

* * *

AN

This is _silly_. I make no excuses!


	2. Chapter 2

AN: More silliness, I couldn't resist.

-Aww, thanks for the faves! I really appreciate it.

* * *

"Bloody hell."

That summed the situation up just fine, thought Harry, who had elected to cuddle up with the late Lord Voldemort's wand and cloak atop the barely breathing bodies of his parents. They were his trophies, damn it, and he'd cuddle with them all he pleased until somebody took them away.

The fellow who'd breathed the intelligent comment appeared to be a nobody of consequence who'd thought to come see exactly what the Potter's had gotten up to that morning.

Harry squinted at him, then at the men behind him. Scratch that. This was an Auror. Fine and dandy, about time they dragged their carcasses over to check.

"Gaa, gaa." Harry greeted him and chewed on his wand absently. It fizzled red sparks, lighting up the frozen stag and lions surrounding him.

"Bloody hell, bloody hell, bloody hell. Over here! I found the Potters!" the man bellowed, and a cacophony of voices joined his as the troop of Aurors navigated the remains of the flattened house to reach them.

Harry just smiled when a kindly looking woman picked him up and muttered a warming charm, taking him away while a team of Mediwizards looked over his parents. He did frown when she plucked the wand from his grasp, but at his look of discontent she offered him a conjured toy wand in its place. Harry chewed on it delightedly.

It tasted like mint.

* * *

Harry spent an inordinate amount of time in a white room. It was not a particularly bad room, as far as rooms go, but he felt that measures could have been taken to make it at least a little, teensy, tiny bit less _dreary_

Its only saving grace was that nurses constantly filtered through, always taking a moment to check on him and receive their token smile from baby Harry.

"Goo," he said, in greeting as one passed, then clambered to his feet and leaned against the bars of his crib.

He glared at the empty air over his head. This was positively criminal. Didn't the staff at St. Mungoes know that babies were to be provided with diverting overhead toys? All he had was this wand of his that lit up orange when he chewed on it a certain way.

Smiling, he dropped to his knees and crawled to retrieve his wand, then chewed on it just so, delighting in the orange glow.

Wait, he was getting side tracked.

Where was his righteous indignation?

Hee. Orange wand. Num num num.

"Harry, dear," said a nurse, stalking toward his crib. He eyed her warily. She looked like she was going to pick him up.

Num num. Orange.

Pick him up she did, and then she said something that pleased him very much.

"We're going to see your mummy now, Harry."

"Mama!"

He gripped the slightly soggy wand tightly in his little fist and pointed imperiously in what he knew was Lilly's general direction. It flashed orange and stayed lit.

"Goodness," the nurse murmured to herself.

* * *

If Harry were to be entirely honest with himself, he might admit that he was entertaining the possibility that he hadn't done his parents a favor by resurrecting them.

Certainly his mother had been distraught to wake up in a hospital bed only to be told her home had been attacked, her child had survived a lethal curse and that her husband was recovering from a coma.

. . . And that she and he had both been the victim of some unknown ritual and they now had black eyes.

. . . And nobody could tell what was wrong, if anything.

. . . But that it was all okay because Voldemort was dead now. Hurrah!

Still, she was more than mollified by the fact that her family was alive, and had corrected the suspicion that Black had betrayed them, making it clear that Pettigrew had been their secret keeper.

Harry adored the time he spent in her company, playing stupid games and gurgling like the baby he was.

Harry did not, however, enjoy looking her in the eyes, now that he thought he understood exactly what he was seeing. The eyes were windows to the soul, and if his mother had one, it wasn't in the usual place anymore.

Instead, they opened into the inky depths of somewhere else, and from time to time, something looked out. He'd waved at one, and it had quivered at him before flitting away. He suspected that the terms of the ritual decreed that these curious things might one day do a little more than look.

He decided to be optimistic about it. For all he knew it could be to his benefit to have soulless monsters for parents with further monsters living a hairs breadth beneath their eyelids, particularly if he needed to go through the whole bloody prophecy thing again.

Baby Harry gurgled happily and hugged his mother as best he could. Things were looking up.

It occurred to him during his dinner that if all went to hell for his efforts, at least the pair could have a few more good shags. Lilly had fabulous tits, and it would be a shame to bury them so young.

Good god, he was a dirty old man at the tender age of one.

* * *

It was a solid week before James awoke, and as the man hadn't yet torn into his wife's room, plucked Harry out of her grasp and dashed him against the tiled floor, Harry was inclined to be pleased when Lilly received permission to visit with him in hand.

He practiced his cheerful burbling as they were escorted to the recovery ward by a kindly nurse.

Occasionally, when he was completely at a loss as to how to respond to an adult's fit of baby talk, he actually vocalized the word, "burble," which earned him some odd looks from time to time. He'd done it so often now that a nurse had already aired the hypothesis that he said it when people didn't make any sense.

Perhaps he'd substitute with animal noises, like "moo" or "woof." Surely those would be considered moderately endearing responses and not a sign of a malignant intelligence waiting to plunge their world into chaos and misery through the darkest of black magics?

Bah, first he'd need to convince someone to show him an animal picture book, if he were to maintain his cover. He didn't think anyone had sat down and gone through the cow goes moo with him yet.

Did magical children even get the whole farm animal book thing? He really didn't know.

* * *

"Your son is remarkably well behaved, Misses Potter!"

"Thank you. He's such a dear."

"Lilly . . ."

"Yes, James?"

"This may sound incredibly selfish, but, uh. Would you mind if I spent some time alone with Harry? I need to . . . I mean, I just want to confirm. Well."

"Oh, James. I love you. I understand. I'll be back in a while. Ring if he needs his nappies changed, though!"

Harry watched this exchange with interest. This was a family dynamic he hadn't known existed.

Mother and nurse left, and Harry looked up at his father.

"I wonder which one you are. I really wonder," James murmured, holding Harry in the crook of his arm and walking toward a little table in the corner of his room. "To that end, I've devised a test."

Pea mash.

That was pea mash Harry saw on the table. This was not a good sign.

Harry eyed the jar warily.

"Yes you see this, don't you?" James smiled. "This is your very favorite green pea mash that you like so much, Harry. Now open wide, and lets see if you spit it in my eye."

Harry opened his mouth as per spec, gobbled the mouthful of mash, "Huh. Good bo-" and spat it in James's mouth.

"Oh ye gods this tastes terrible!" James exclaimed, sputtering.

"Burble," said Harry.

"Yuck," James said with feeling, after having washed it down with the glass of water at his bedside.

"Well played, Harry. Very well played."

Harry giggled at him.

James held him gently, but his face hardened.

"You're still in there, aren't you?"

Harry didn't feel up to pretending to be a squalling brat just to temporarily deceive a man he'd come to respect. He nodded and waited to see what he would do.

Rather than looking angry, James just seemed resigned. "Can you talk anymore?" he asked.

"Dada," Harry said simply, shaking his head apologetically.

"I see."

James looked very sad, and Harry reached a chubby hand out to his face.

"Dada."

"My son is in there too?"

"Dada," Harry said again, with feeling.

James lowered his forehead and rubbed noses with him.

"You didn't get what you wanted, did you?" he whispered.

Harry looked at him somberly and shook a fist in mock fury. "Dada," he said in as close to an annoyed tone as he could muster.

"Why are we alive, Harry?"

"Dada," Harry answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Looking into his father's coal black eyes, he mused that this was possibly the most versatile word he'd ever come across, as it captured his feelings on the subject perfectly.

James seemed to understand.

* * *

Their family home, in old Godric's Hollow, was a write off. But the method in which it had been destroyed, namely being sent into low orbit in many pieces, presented them with an opportunity to raise something better in its place.

A modern home for the modern wizarding family! A paranoid, jumpy family. One with a large number of enemies.

It was good, then, that the house elves had survived the conflagration.

The lead house elf was named Brick. Brick was not a stupid elf.

Brick had, in fact, taken one look at Harry's glowing eyes when he crawled around a corner and shrieked like a little girl elf before running to hide in the chimney. As the only elf on duty at the time, he'd been at something of a loss when Harry murdered his mum in cold blood, but there were precedents for this sort of thing. He shouted very softly as only an elf can and woke up the other elves, who also made for the chimney.

"Three to one odds on the little master."

"Tizzy will take that bet!"

When the chimney exploded, they relocated to their warren beneath the cellar, which was considerably safer. Here they concluded that master Harry was a very scary master indeed.

When James returned after his convalescence, he put them to work. And work they did.

House elves, it turns out, are very good at building houses.

* * *

The family stood in the hospital's designated apparition point, happy to get away. James had already been free for some time, but Lilly had been allowed to remain with Harry until he was healed of all scrapes and bruises, to say nothing of the lightning bolt scar on his head.

"On three," said James, preparing to apparate with Lilly and Harry to their freshly restored home.

"I know how this works, James," said Lilly.

"Right."

"Three!" they both shouted, and Harry felt the sensation of crawling up his own nostril and coming out the other side.

Then he noticed that he was falling.

Lilly, bless her heart, had gone and lost him along the way.

"Gurble flub flllbpt," said Harry, as he tumbled head over heels in the sky over London.

Sky.

London.

Sky.

More London.

Etc.

If only, he thought between revolutions, he had his Firebolt.

Sky.

He'd really be able to do something about this, then.

A faint prickle built up in his sinuses, and he sneezed.

He dropped into Lilly's arms a moment later.

"Oh. There he is," James murmured weakly.

"Harry!" Lilly squeezed him tightly to her breasts. "Oh you silly boy. Don't scare mummy like that!"

"Mmph."

"You're smothering him, dear."

"What? I'm his mum, I'm allowed to mother him"

"I said you're _smothering_ him."

"Oh. Oh! Harry!"

"Burble," said Harry, scrunching his nose at her.

James squeezed the bridge of his nose and looked at Harry sideways. "That's uncanny, that is."

"He learned it from the nurses, I think."

When Lilly carried Harry up the steps to the front door, he saw something that nearly caused him to choke on his own tongue out of his effort not to laugh.

One unfortunate lion had been shrunk to the size of a mouse and was attached to the front door by its tail as a knocker. It scrabbled against a steel plate and yawned as they approached.

"James?" Lilly said sweetly.

"Yes, dear?" James had a slightly wary tone to his voice, and looked at her inquisitively.

"Did you put a lion on the door?"

"Oh. Oh! Yes, I did!" he said proudly. "Er, do you like it?"

Lilly pouted and examined the lion closer, reaching out a hand but stopping half way. "I'm not sure. Will it eat my hand?"

"Right now? Only if you're a death eater."

This comment did not seem to reassure her. "Is that really safe?"

"I figured, see, that you could put a detection charm on the lion, so it could tell if someone nasty got close. Then it'd do its thing."

"But its tiny," she said flatly.

"Well, sure, but the lion on the roof isn't." James pointed overhead.

Lilly looked up and stared at the fully grown brass lion that was lounging in the shadow of the massive mantle above the door. Its tail hung down and twitched mildly.

She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped and plainly considered the notion of an erstwhile eater of death knocking on her door, only to be crushed to death while wrestling its hand out of the jaws of a brass kitten.

"I like it," she said firmly, giving Harry a squeeze. For his part, Harry burbled appreciatively and eyed the lion with a look of malicious glee. It glowered back at him and mewled.

"That is adorable!" Lilly squealed, immediately sold on the idea.

The lion glared at her, too.

James grinned and led his family inside, sparing a sympathetic glance for his creation.


	3. Chapter 3

When Harry stumbled down the steps from his room on the second floor into the den, he noticed that something, somehow, had gone terribly awry on this grey September morning.

His toes squelched on the Persian rug covering the hardwood landing. It was tacky, yes, but it was also _sticky_.

He squinted down at his feet and shifted his weight. Squish, squish. It was still too dark to tell the color, but it smelled suspiciously like honey. Why was there honey on the damned rug? He took another careful step and then squelched his way along the carpet to the doorway leading to the living room and kitchen, which shared space under a vaulted ceiling.

"Mum, dad?" he asked, squelching purposefully into the kitchen.

No response was forthcoming, and he pulled his old toy wand from out of his trouser pocket. It lit up orange and dribbled a river of sparks to the floor, where they bounced away into the corners of the room, lighting it in an eerie glow.

Pictures hung skew on the walls. The liquor cabinet was wide open and looked to be missing half its contents. At least one vase had been dashed off a wall, where an unbreakable charm had caused it to leave a dent, and the dishes had been left undone. The hardwood here was dry, and his feet stuck to it as he paced to the window and lifted the curtain.

The lawn was undisturbed, and no lions prowled in his field of view.

Something rasped.

Harry turned and raised his wand reflexively.

More sparks illuminated a reclining figure on the couch, and he subsided with a long sigh.

His dogfather was fast asleep with all four legs up in the air. Sirius' tongue lolled out one side of his mouth and puddle of drool glinted beside his head.

Harry sighed and turned to put on a pot of coffee.

* * *

It was the smell of morning coffee that woke Sirius from his doggy dreams.

He rolled over and flopped to the floor, then stood and shook himself. Harry watched this from the other side of the short table and smiled.

Sirius looked at him askance and quirked a doggy ear. Harry raised his mug in greeting. "Mornin', Sirius."

A moment later Sirius let out a full body sneeze. "Jeeze," he said, looking around the room, "sorry about the mess, pup."

Harry snickered and sipped his coffee. "Your breakfast is in the kitchen."

Sirius brightened instantly. "Thanks!" he stalked into the kitchen and liberated his plate and a mug of his own before coming back to sit down beside Harry with a great flop. "You know, don't tell Lilly, but I think your food's even better."

"I won't say a word."

Sirius munched his French Toast happily and refrained from looking around.

"So," said Harry, taking in the ambiance.

Sirius flushed and looked at the dent in the wall, tonguing his cheek.

"I meant to clean this up before I fell asleep, actually."

Harry just looked at him.

"Aw, c'mon Harry, it was just a bit of fun."

"Like last time."

Sirius looked increasingly sheepish. ". . . Yeah, like last time."

"What did they do?"

"Erm. Adult stuff. You don't want to know."

Harry shook his head and sighed. This was what he got for his trouble. His parents had, over the past few years, taken a liberal view of what they might once have considered acceptable behavior. Their inhibitions were simply missing, and it was up to their friends and Harry to cover for them.

Sirius took it all in stride. The man was a rock of calm in the family, serving as Harry's official baby sitter and sometime tutor. Harry adored him. He was really quite dependable when not suffering from years of attention at the claws of a small legion of Dementors.

"Your girlfriend isn't here this time?"

"Naw, she wasn't feeling up to another party. It was just us."

Harry nudged a bottle of Firewhiskey with his toes.

"James?"

"Lilly, actually."

"She's drinking like a fish."

"She has the sobriety charms to make up for it, though."

Harry briefly considered the state of her liver, then shrugged. He'd already resurrected her once. What was a liver transplant next to that?

Well hell. "At least nobody died," Harry said, heaving a sigh of relief.

"About that."

Harry froze. ". . . Like last time?"

Sirius waved his hands frantically. "No, no. Just . . . Well. You'll want to see this."

He placed his mug on the table before standing and leading Harry away.

* * *

Harry held court in the cellar.

The roof was slightly too low for comfort, but not so much that an adult would need to stoop. Harry still had a way to go, but Sirius looked slightly put out. The air had a faintly acrid stench to it.

His minions, plus Sirius, looked on with no small amount of trepidation.

"This is going to end in tears, you know," said Harry.

"In tears!" echoed a young house elf, who was shushed by its nanny.

"Lilly is almost certain it'll work."

Harry looked over the marvelously complex pentagram Lilly had somehow etched into the stone floor and felt his hopes sink to a level they tended to reach only when he watched James pull off a Wronski Feint in a pick up game. Why couldn't his parents pick safer, saner hobbies?

"Light wizards don't make horcruxes, Sirius."

"And how would you know?" Sirius asked defensively.

Harry paused at this.

"Alright. Let me rephrase. Light wizards typically aren't expected to make the most genuinely harmful magical artifacts known to wizard kind."

Sirius grinned. "We made the atom bomb."

"Would you stop bringing that up? It was for a good cau-"

"Ahah! For a good cause, he says!"

"A good cause!" parroted another elf. It, too, was shushed.

Harry felt his frown come dangerously close to a pout. Good causes and greater goods were what had driven him into a corner in the first place. Now this? He rather doubted that his parents had souls left at all, let alone enough to split them!

What a bother.

Sirius hugged him about the shoulders with one arm.

"Look, Harry. I know you think your parents are taking things a bit far, but you weren't around during the war. You don't know what it was like. And those, those _people_, the Death Eaters. They're still around. We see them every day, and we wonder when they're going to strike again. When their children will strike. Or their children's children."

Harry made a moue of distaste. Didn't know what it was like, indeed. "And that makes this a good idea?"

"James once told me that if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have won. And frankly? I believe him."

Harry thought this was all getting a little too crazy. Sure, he knew Sirius was the type to go along with any idea James thought up, but even this? Then again, that was easy: Lilly came up with the truly heinous ideas, James doted on her, and Sirius doted on James. If Remus got dragged in too, that'd leave him as the last sane man.

"Well, try not to blow up the house. Okay?"

Sirius grinned. "Cross my heart, pup."

"And I'm not going to be anywhere near this place when you try . . . Whatever you're doing," Harry added crossly.

"Funny you should mention your upcoming trip."

"Trip?"

"You'll enjoy it."

Harry hated surprises, and Sirius knew it, but he let it pass. This was warning enough.

"I take it that I didn't see this?"

"You did not," Sirius affirmed.

"Right. Lets clean up the house before they get back, then."

* * *

It was well after one when James burst in through the front door, carrying dear Lilly over the threshold. The brass kitten pawed at him fiestly before the door slammed shut behind them.

"Wheeheehee!" she giggled.

"And we're home, my dear." James crowed.

Harry looked at them from the kitchen bar, where he'd been answering fan mail. Lilly was wearing a lacy black number that was entirely too short for a lady of her station, and James' shirt and slacks were thoroughly rumpled and not a little stained.

"Good afternoon," he said, quirking an eyebrow.

"Harry!" Lilly squealed happily and jumped out of James' arms.

Harry braced himself, and a moment later she was on him.

"Mmphle," he said diplomatically from between her breasts.

"Dear," said James.

"Yes honey?" Lilly asked, releasing Harry from her iron grip for a moment.

James just looked at them both, and Harry felt his cheeks turn red.

"Never mind, dear."

Lilly resumed smothering Harry as if she hadn't been interrupted.

"Who's my best boy? Yes you are, yes you are!"

Harry tilted his head down and freed his mouth. "Love you too, mum," he muttered.

Lilly let him go and just beamed.

Harry tongued his cheek and looked to James for support.

James slinked close and grabbed Lilly by the waist.

"Why," he purred into her neck, "don't you go get cleaned up, and I'll have the house elves make us lunch."

Lilly grabbed his hands and squeezed them into her belly. "That. Sounds. Lovely. I'll be right down, boys!" she said, and made her way to the stairs, swinging her hips as she went.

"Is Sirius still here?" asked James, leaning over the bar to read the latest letter Harry was perusing. Yet another request from Teen Witch Weekly for an interview, or at least some clippings of his pubic hair.

"He's out, said he needed to buy something special for Lilly's latest project."

James turned slightly pale, but otherwise made no telling moves. Very good, James, thought Harry.

"So," said James, "how about lunch?"

"Brick!"

Brick popped into existence on the floor beside them, clad in a charred rag that had once been part of a tapestry before the great reconstruction.

"Philly cheese steak sandwich, please," said Harry. "Oh, and coffee."

"Yes sir, mister Potter sir! And other mister Potter will be having?"

James looked at Harry oddly. "Funny how they always mention you first, Harry."

"Its a gift."

"You know, Brick? I'm in the mood for something spicy. And something with seafood for Lils. Pumpkin juice for us both."

How, Harry wondered, could the pair of them still stomach pumpkin juice? He'd been tired of it in his second year.

"Yes sir, other mister Potter sir!"

With a pop, Brick reappeared in the kitchen with a small contingent of elven helpers, and they kindly shooed Harry and James away from the bar while they worked.

They diplomatically relocated to the den.

* * *

"You know, Harry . . ."

Here it was, the old refrain.

Harry drew up his legs and looked at James sidelong from the love seat he'd claimed as his own.

"I think it might be about time for you to get your own wand."

"The ministry took my wand," Harry said petulantly.

"I don't think the ministry sees it that way. _Voldemort's_ wand is staying right where it is."

"Until somebody takes it."

James smirked and waved his hand, conceding the point. "Yes. We're prepared for that, though."

Harry sucked on his teeth and imagined the scene. Hundreds of wizards and witches passing a barely enchanted case of bullet proof glass on a little podium, with _his_ bloody wand sitting on a little velvet pillow for all to see. "How is leaving it on display in the foyer in any way prepared?"

"Tracking charms, you know."

"Immerse the wand in dragon blood and those charms are as good as gone."

"You are not going to steal Voldemorts wand, Harry, no matter how much you want it."

"Of course not, I'm sensible that way. But if you're feeling brave . . ."

"And I'm not stealing it either. That leaves one alternative."

"Old man Ollivander is insane, dad."

"Sane or not, he's still the best at wand making around."

"And," Lilly trilled as she flounced down the stairs, "he always has just the thing. I'm sure he'll find you a nice wand, Harry."

"But I like this one," Harry whined, holding his toy wand aloft. He spun it between his fingers, and a spray of orange sparks flew up and scattered along the ceiling, casting the room in a warm glow.

And he did rather like it. He could do an awful lot with his orange sparks, and since the little wand didn't have a single ministry approved charm attached to it, he was free to practice the fundamentals of magic all he pleased. It was a good toy.

"Orange sparks aren't the end all of magic." James said, looking up at the ceiling with a pained look.

Are too, Harry thought, remaining silent. The sparks formed the Gryffindor crest, then winked out. James frowned at him.

"Just think, with a proper wand you'll be able to make sparks of any color you please," Lilly said gently, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Harry thought about this for a long moment, then craned his neck to stare into her eyes. Something wriggled behind them.

"Why didn't you point that out sooner?"


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Thanks again for the positive reception. I'm glad you're enjoying this little foray of mine.

* * *

"Haarrrrrriiiiiiieeee-" Hermione shrieked, then flopped atop a mattress he'd placed at the entrance to the chamber just for the eventuality that he might forget how to use the plainly marked staircase like a sane wizard.

A lucky woman, was Hermione.

Harry chewed on his tongue and watched her scrabble like a an upended beetle to right herself.

Evidently new security measures were in order.

She tripped over something expensive and swept dust all over his finely polished magic circle, then stumbled to a stop at his side, holding her hand over her mouth in horror.

"Harry? What is this?" she croaked, staring down at the carcass of a unicorn foal he'd been happily carving into quarters before her arrival. He still had the saw in hand.

"Hermione! Am I ever glad you're here!" he crowed, stepping close and putting a friendly arm around her shoulders.

"This is . . . Awful! I think I'm going to be sick."

"Die for me, my dear," he whispered into her ear..

"Wha- Harry?"

"_Avada Kedavra_."

She fell like a puppet with its strings cut, without fanfare or violence.

"Good girl," he said, then bent down to grab her by the ankle and drag her body away from his work before she left a mess.

Deciding to continue the conversation, Harry looked down at her crumpled body and twisted the stone on his ring.

"Did you really think I'd let you go?" he asked her shade teasingly.

The shade looked crushed. "H-Harry, why?"

"You were a liability, my dear. But now you're dead!" he said brightly, "and no one else will be able to make you spill my secrets."

The shade's face scrunched up, and she dissolved into wracking sobs.

"Oh, don't look so put out, you silly bint. It's only temporary."

"W-what?"

"Your body is in perfectly good condition. I'll just raise it as an inferi and bind your soul. Easy as baking a pie. Nobody will even notice you're dead. Er, except possibly your future husband. But I'm sure you'll manage somehow."

The look of dawning horror on her face was enough to make him giggle like a school boy.

"Are you worried about missing out on the afterlife, my dear? Don't worry so much. It's not terribly interesting, from what I've gathered. The living world is so much more fun."

"Ta-ta, my dear. I'll be seeing you shortly." He waved at her and twisted the stone again. Her shade winked out of existence before it could raise any protest.

Harry stepped over to the mattress and peered up the tunnel. So he had a problem. One, Hermione was dead. This was a pity. Two, she had quite possibly told somebody where she was going. Three . . . Well, three was that he had perhaps an hour to make a fresh inferi and jam its soul back in so that it mostly fit. Not actually as easy project on short notice as he'd made it out.

"Shucks." He said.

Leaving his unicorn for later with a handy stasis spell, he dragged Hermione's mortal remains further away from the magic circle, then levitated her the rest of the way to his work table.

A few spells later, her body was clean as a whistle and as naked as the day she was born. It turned out she had moles in he funniest places. Who knew?

He considered this for a moment. Krum, possibly.

Problem four, he'd just scourgified her clothes clean off. Now he'd need to conjure something new for her. Maybe he'd dress her up as a maid and send her back that way, let her explain that for herself.

The first order of business was to crack open her ribs.

"_Reducto_."

That snapped them nicely. Some more spell work caved them right on out, and he stabbed his wand into her heart with a great squish of finality.

"_Inferius_, something or other, _magic word_. Look, I'm the Master of bloody Death, so Hermione you snoop, into this body you go."

Her body convulsed, and a plume of gray smoke wound from his ring and along his wand to settle into the hole.

Distantly, he heard her begin to scream.

It was a dainty sound, as if it came from a porcelain doll.

He grinned feraly and mastered his magic. Now came the hard part.

* * *

The screaming rose in pitch.

It was a tea kettle, and he was sleeping in.

The dream was all wrong, anyway. Hermione was alive now. Unless she'd been hit by a car, or otherwise invalidated by the shenanigans of time. The inferi incident was old history.

Harry groaned and rolled over in bed. Looking around, it struck him as it always did that his room was larger than he preferred. After his years spent in a cupboard, normal housing always seemed more than generous to him. It was nice to have his own space anyway.

He slid out and stood, picking up his glasses from the bedside table as he did. A glance out the window confirmed that morning was well under way, and today nobody had hoodwinked him with silencing charms. It was to be a regular day, then.

His morning rituals were preformed without interruption, and he tromped down to the den wearing his favorite sport robe.

"Morning, Harry." Said Sirius, walking over with two mugs of coffee.

"Morning." He accepted a mug from Sirius, it looked to be just the way he liked it. Milky and mostly sugar. "Thanks!"

"Always, pup."

They walked into the kitchen and watched the elves make their final preparations.

"Harry!" Lilly shouted from the couch, where she was cuddling with a sleepy looking James.

"Morning mum, dad."

"M'rn'n," mumbled James, apparently quite happy with his head on Lilly's lap.

"What's the special occasion?" asked Harry, noting that Sirius was already dressed for an outing, wearing his dragon hide boots and a small ritual dagger he carried everywhere, "Just in case, pup."

"We're getting you a wand, and no excuses," said Sirius.

Harry knew better than to argue. "Alright."

James groused to himself, "Alright, he says. Years we've been pestering him and now he says alright."

Lilly swatted him playfully. "Its fine, dear. He knows the basics."

"Basics my arse."

"James."

"I'm just saying he knows more than he lets on," James whined.

"Mhm."

Harry looked at James sourly. The man never did let their first meeting go entirely, despite Harry's assurances that it was best left to the mists of time.

Sirius clapped Harry on his shoulder and pointed to the kitchen. "Eat up. Chop chop."

"Yes mister Sirius, sir," said Harry, saluting as he went.

"Don't sir me, whelp."

"Sir!"

James barked a laugh, and Sirius turned to favor him with a mock glare.

"What? It was funny."

Lilly snickered and kissed James on his nose.

"I love you."

"Love you too, Lils."

Sirius threw up his hands. "Fine, be that way."

"We love you, too!" cried Lilly.

"Yeah," said James. "Love you too, Padfoot."

Harry cringed and tucked into his breakfast. His parents were the sappiest of saps.

Sirius just blushed and sat down beside Harry, leaving the pair to their cuddles.

"Ice cream after we get your wand," he whispered.

Harry grinned. "Cool."

* * *

Side along apparating with Sirius was less traumatic than it was with his parents. He felt solid, and while Harry still felt as if he was being dragged through his own nostrils and out the other end, he never found himself airborne.

They appeared at the Alley's primary apparition point with their feet firmly on the ground, and shuffled off to make room.

"Busy day," commented Sirius.

"Could be worse, remember that wholesale place?"

"Oh bloody hell, don't remind me. I'm sending the elves next time."

Harry enjoyed the crowds of Diagon Alley. They were always so surprised to see him.

He smiled and waved at a gaggle of girls who pointed and shrieked at his scar. It was cute, really. Seeing him just made them so happy,and who was he to begrudge them that?

Harry's smile turned sickly when a spray of hot blood splashed his face.

Someone had opened the throat of the man walking in front of him.

There was screaming, naturally. There was always screaming, in these situations. He watched the cutting curse carry on to slice a hanging sign in twain, and its halves swung away on their chains.

He paid rather more attention to this than he did the writhing of the dying man in front of him. The magic was what killed him. Where did it come from?

He turned and raised his toy wand, just in time to see Sirius fire off a bludgeoning hex over the heads of the shoppers who were scurrying out of his way.

Whether Sirius was aiming for a man or the alley wall he actually hit, Harry didn't know, but the explosion was deafening. Everything was silent to his ears as Sirius grabbed his elbow and dragged him, pushed him along into a dead run.

This was a whole lot more interesting than he'd bargained for.

He zigged and zagged at Sirius' direction, running as fast as his legs could take him up the Alley, past people who weren't alarmed and passing a few less speedy shoppers who'd had exactly the same idea as them. They were the forefront of a wave of panic, and they both intended to be lost in it.

"Come on, pup, we need to get you a wand, now," Sirius gasped.

"A bit late," Harry huffed, "for that, don't you think?"

"The apparition point is back the way we came!"

"So we're stuck here!"

"Unless you really want to be splinched, yes!"

"Wand-" Harry skipped over a leash, earning the ire of the dog's owner, "it is!"

They crashed into the entrance to Ollivander's store moments after an elderly gentleman exited, clutching a new wand in his hands.

"Woah there," he said. "Good timing."

"Yeah," gasped Harry. "Thanks. Have a good day!"

"Same to you," said the man.

Sirius yanked open the door, and it jangled brightly. "Inside."

Harry ducked inside as ordered, and Sirius slammed the door shut behind them.

"Mister Ollivander!?" cried Sirius, "Mister Ollivander, sir. We're looking for a wand. Rather urgently, I might add."

Ollivander himself poked his head out from behind a shelf. "Yes, yes, I'm sure its a matter of dreadful urgency," he drawled, then stopped and stared at Harry's bloody face.

"Good god, child. What happened to you?"

Harry raised a hand to wipe his face, and then thought better of it. He let his hand drop.

Sirius spoke up first. "That's why we're in a hurry. Somebody just tried to kill him."

"That's not his blood, then."

Sirius grimaced, and Harry scrunched his nose. His face itched.

"Not as such, no."

Ollivander sighed. "And here I was looking forward to a pleasant day."

The alley got steadily noisier, and they turned to watch a stampede stream past the window.

Harry took a deep breath. "I'm glad we're out of that."

"Yeah," said Sirius. "Definitely."

"Mister Ollivander," Harry began, "I think I know which wand will suit me, if that'll speed this up."

Ollivander smirked at them both. "And I'm sure I have just the thing. Humor an old man for a moment, please."

He turned and picked a wand from the shelf beside him, seemingly at random.

"This wand is entirely unsuited to you, in fact, if you were to even try to channel magic through it, it would explode."

Harry eyed it warily.

"There is one wand in this room that should suit you, however."

Ollivander stalked to the register and picked up a box he had already placed on the counter before they'd arrived. Inside it, he revealed, was Harry's old phoenix feather wand.

Harry stared. "How did you know?"

Ollivanders eyes crinkled in a full smile. "Trick of the trade, dear boy."

Sirius spoke up. "That's creepy. Really creepy."

Ollivander handed the wand to Harry, and he picked it out of the box gingerly.

Somehow, the wand didn't seem to be happy to see him. It felt leaden in his hand, and flatly refused to spark.

"Its a bit, uh." Harry searched for the word. "Unhappy."

"You'll have to manage, I'm afraid. The other wands would be worse."

"That's it?"

"This is definitely the right wand, Sirius. Its just going to take a little while to, er, break it in."

"We don't have a little while."

Harry shrugged, then waved the wand and muttered, "_Protego,"_ A shimmering half dome appeared before him, and his wand vibrated faintly with strain.

"Shit. First try. Good job, pup."

"Sir, is there anything I can do to fix this?"

"Fix what?"

Ollivander looked unhappy. "I'm afraid that only time will tell."

Harry turned to Sirius and explained, "The wand works, but it doesn't like me much. Its resisting my magic."

"But you've only tried this one, what about the rest?"

"I assure you, mister Black, it is my opinion as a wand maker that the rest of my stock would not suffice."

Sirius looked frustrated. "Alright, we'll take it, but I'd like you to make something better for him."

"You know the ministry frowns on custom wands."

"The Black fortune frowns on the ministry."

"Very well, then. I'll send a letter when I've prepared one that suits him better. It may take some time."

Harry looked between the two with a sense of wonder. He'd never thought to have a custom wand constructed before. He'd always made do with his looted prizes.

"Alright, then, its what, ten galleons?"

"That's right," said Ollivander.

"Here you go." Sirius handed him ten galleons from his belt pouch.

"Appreciated."

Sirius gave Harry a funny look. "Harry . . . "

"Yes?"

"Clean yourself up, will you?"

"Oh. Right. _Scourgify_."

There was a muffled retort, and puff of sawdust exploded out of the door.

"You missed."

Harry looked at it askance and fingered his perfectly clean face.

"That wasn't me."

Sirius realized the danger first, and a shimmering curtain of magic sprung to life at his command, even as the door seemed to splinter and cave in on itself as if an invisible hammer were punching holes through it.

The window shattered, and more holes were punched through the shelves and wands on display.

It was this last which resulted in what was later termed, the Great Bloody Bang.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry's head hurt. No, it didn't just hurt. It ached abominably, and there was an incredibly sharp pain all along one side of his skull. His arms felt wet and throbbed just as much. He was laying at an odd angle on something hard.

"Harry!"

Harry opened his eyes and saw purple. Magic. He turned and saw Sirius. His dogfather's nose was plainly broken, and his face was a bubbling mask of blood.

"Where are we?" Harry whispered blearily.

"What?" Sirius shook his head, "I can't hear you!"

"Where are we!?"

"Ollivander's! Remember, we ran here and someone shot up the place!"

"Great!"

Harry dragged himself into a seated position and looked out through the purple dome Sirius had cast over them. This was dueling magic, not taught in class, and he knew exactly how it worked. Projectiles go in one way, projectiles go right back. It was a reflective bunker shield. Proof against bullets and a laundry list of spells. It was also very draining to maintain.

He realized why the side of his skull hurt the moment he got a good look at his forearms. They were covered in a thousand and one bleeding puncture wounds from splinters. Probably stray bits of wand. He looked like a porcupine, and he felt like he'd been hit with one.

"Shit," he said with feeling.

"What!?"

"Shit!"

"Yeah. Yeah that's about right! We've gotta move, pup!"

"What about Ollivander!?"

"Haven't seen him!"

They were in the gutted remains of Ollivander's shop, now open to the street and the sky, minus a wall and ceiling. Likely what saved them was Sirius' shield against the machine gun and a helpful dose of good old fashioned accidental magic. It took a very big bang indeed to kill a grown wizard, and the conflagration of wands cooking off hadn't quite been enough.

At least it hadn't in their case. Ollivander himself was nowhere to be found.

Harry shrugged and looked for his wand. It was missing, naturally, but he'd made enough of a connection with it that a wordless accio sent it sailing out of the debris to his hand, where it flopped like a heavy weight.

"Point me Ollivander!"

The wand twisted down and to the left. Ollivander was underneath a shelf.

Harry's first levitation spell in years was not perfect, and he succeeded in dislodging only half the shelf before it crashed back down beside the man.

"We can't leave him like this!" he shouted.

Ollivander was not in good shape. His legs were broken, and one of his arms was twisted clear around in an anatomically unlikely angle. He was mercifully unconcious.

Sirius looked unhappy. "We may have to! I can't hold a shield forever!"

"Shouldn't the Aurors be here soon!?"

"They'll be here, I tripped an alarm James lent me. He knows we're in trouble!"

There was movement across the road, and Harry felt his heart sink as a blue curse leapt across to splatter against Sirius' dome. It bounced away and melted a bit of stonework.

"Shit. They're still here!"

A Death Eater rolled into view briefly, cradling his arm and looking rather worse for wear. Harry wanted to curse him right back, but the dome worked both ways.

"Drop the dome, Sirius, we can take him!"

Sirius waved his hand airily. "Oh sure, but what about all his friends!?"

"Aw, hell."

More figures picked their way out of the smoke.

Harry hissed to himself and transfigured the debris inside the dome into a low berm, which he laid behind. They might be sitting ducks, but that didn't mean he had to be silly about it.

Sirius whistled and crouched lower. "James wasn't kidding," he said.

"I know some tricks."

Sirius was beginning to sweat visibly.

"Think we have time?"

"I'll hold it," he said grimly.

The smoke cleared sufficiently that they could see the masks on their adversary's faces. Six of them in all, they moved gingerly, like they weren't quite certain what to do next. That was a plus, in Harry's estimation. They hadn't expected Ollivander's wand shop to explode, and now they were faced with a duelists bunker.

The Killing Curse would go straight through, of course, but there was the small matter of the curse requiring a great deal of power and intent to cast. It really wasn't as easy as two simple words, and for this rattled crew it wasn't in the cards.

A pair of them began to lob stunners. This rapidly proved to be an awful idea, as the spells simply ricocheted off in odd directions, causing one to jump out of the way and trip over his feet.

They convened to discuss matters amongst themselves, waving their hands and occasionally pointing at the dome.

Sirius smiled. "They're as dumb as rocks, aren't they?" he said.

Harry was not as pleased. "Still stuck here, Sirius." Now if Sirius were to drop the dome, Harry might see to exploding the whole lot of them. But then he'd get in an awful amount of trouble for killing six men in broad daylight. This was a problem.

A problem soon solved by the whistle of incoming stunners from the direction of the apparition point. A storm of red light illuminated the Death Eaters as they raised shields and dove for cover, but their desperate defence didn't account for James' speciality. The cobble stone street bucked, and bricks clattered and reformed themselves into an enormous building height golem to lead the charge. One death eater fell, and his fellows left him as he was stunned again and again into insensibility.

The golem, shaped rather like a great shaggy dog made of brick, sprung to life and began stalking toward the unhappy crew of Death Eaters. They responded by making a spirited attempt at blowing it to pieces.

Funny things, golems. If you blow off a piece, the piece just comes right back.

It took a mighty blow to the chest and seemed to bulge around the explosion before righting itself and carrying on its way. Waves of acid did little more than to give it a finely glazed texture, and stunners simply fizzled sadly.

One man tried a counter transfiguration, but succeeded only in giving it horns.

It was a bad day to be a Death Eater.

Doubly so when Sirius dropped his shield and fired a wave of force along the ground that toppled three of them who'd elected to remain standing, trusting in their own shields to protect them from the sheets of stunning magic.

Harry, not to be outdone, picked up a spare wand and channelled magic through it for a moment before tossing it over. Two were painted red in an instant, but the third rolled away and raised his shield again.

The wand-grenade exploded in his face, and the man shrieked like a banshee before he too was stunned.

Only two Death Eaters were left. But by now they were desperate enough to cast unforgivables, and cast they did. Green light flitted toward the team of aurors, and they hit the ground as one. The golem, though, simply kept going, and it was with a great swipe of its paw that the first of the two found himself sailing through the air to land in a crumpled heap.

The last man dropped his wand and surrendered before the beast. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't transfigured with mercy in mind, and the men present cringed at the sound of cracking bone as its paw came down a second time.

Harry grinned.

* * *

The Aurors picked their way along the street, stepping around the hole the golem had left in the ground and avoiding the tripping hazards Ollivander's store had deposited in its brief scuffle with gravity. Harry marveled at the sheer amount of shattered glass laying along the alleyway. Nearly every storefront he could see was a mess.

One figure ran ahead. "Harry!? Sirius!?"

"Here, dad!" said Harry, standing and helping an exhausted Sirius to his feet.

"You look like shit," James said, grinning as he stepped close.

Harry pouted at him. "I feel like shit."

Sirius favored them both with a sour look. "I'm fine, thanks for asking."

"Glad you're alright, Padfoot." James clasped Sirius' free hand with his own. "Thanks for looking after Harry."

"Always, Prongs."

An Auror trotted up from where the rest secured their prisoners. "Two dead, sir. One badly injured, not sure he'll make it. Something took his throat."

"Good," said James, his eyes shining like wet leather. "That's three less Death Eaters to worry about."

"Sir," the man looked uncomfortable with this sentiment.

"Pack 'em up, I'll take these three to Saint Mungoes."

"Er, sir, about the dog?"

"Oh, right. Tinkerbell!" The golem turned its head and stepped away from the unfortunate corpse at its feet, causing several Aurors to dance out of its path. "Sit!"

The golem padded away to where it had risen and laid down on the dirt before going completely inert. Inert, but not flat. It was now a sculpture.

The Aurors stared at it and shook their heads.

"Call it a memorial," James said.

Harry picked a splinter out of his arm and winced. This was going to be oodles of fun.

"Leave it, pup. The healers will do that a whole lot better than you can."

"Sure, sure."

James leaned down to check on Ollivander. "Well I'll be damned, he's still breathing."

"Good, he owes me a wand."

"Tell me about it at the hospital, hold on to this," James said, offering them a length of rope.

Sirius and Harry both grabbed on, while James laid the other end on Ollivander's back.

An instant later they were on their way to the emergency ward.

* * *

Harry yawned and rubbed the bandages on his forearms. They covered sticky poultices that would help to reduce, if not eliminate, the scarring from the magically charged wood. He also had a poultice on the side of his head, but he liked to think the bandages made him look dashing.

They did nothing of the sort. A nurse nodded at him sympathetically as he passed.

Looking around the waiting room, he couldn't help but think that the hospital could do with a feminine touch. A little redecorating here and there would go a long way to sprucing the place up. It was cold looking, not nearly as inviting as he'd have preferred.

James rounded the corner with Sirius in tow. His dogfather was all cleaned up, and his nose, while visibly swollen, was no longer pouring blood.

"All ready?" Harry asked.

"That's right. Time to drop you two off at home. I need to finish up with the prisoners and get back to the alley. You two left an awful mess."

"Lils is going to kill me," moaned Sirius as they began to walk down the hall leading to the foyer.

"She won't. You did your best."

"Sure, but he still got hurt."

Harry felt slightly degraded by all the concern. "I'm fine, Sirius."

"Ah, hell. At least we won."

"How did you know where we were, anyway?" Harry asked James.

"Lils made a little trinket for us," said James.

"I want one," Harry said firmly.

"And you'll get one, not to worry."

"How's Ollivander doing?"

"Still unconscious, but the healers think he'll be fine. He'll probably wake up tomorrow."

Sirius snorted. "Poor bastard. His whole store's gone."

"We'll work it out. Leastwise the survivor's will have something between them to pay for the damage."

Sirius nodded, and Harry shrugged. He thought it was a pity, to be sure, but it wasn't his problem.

They reached the apparition point in short order. "Alright, on three," said James, holding on to Harry's shoulder.

"Three!" they all shouted, and they were off.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Golly. This has received much more interest than I expected! Thanks for reading, everyone. I appreciate it.

* * *

Godric's Hollow was on full alert. The wards crackled as the trio approached, and a curious Brass Lion ambled over to greet them. James leaned down to scratch it behind its ears as he walked.

"Mrowr," it grated, giving Harry a dirty look as it clomped away on its patrol. Harry pulled a face at it.

The door slammed open, much to the dismay of the door kitten, and Lilly stepped out with a translucent shield shimmering before her. Only when she was certain they were alone did she drop her wand to her side.

"Don't you even start, Sirius. I saw it all in my mirror." Lilly said, hurrying down the path to meet them.

Mirror? Did she mean to say she had a scrying mirror? Harry boggled at the notion that his mother had watched him on every outing he'd ever been on without her. That was, as Sirius would say, just a little creepy.

"Lils-"

She stopped Sirius in mid word by dragging him down by his lapels for an open-mouthed kiss.

Sirius froze, then made wild gestures in Harry's direction.

Lilly did not let go. When she started nibbling on his lower lip he surrendered and put an arm around her waist.

Harry looked on impassively. James smirked.

"This is the sort of behavior that costs Sirius his girlfriends, you know," said Harry.

Lilly came up for air. "He doesn't _need_ a girlfriend."

Sirius let her go and stepped back, looking pained.

"Where's my kiss?" James asked.

"Right here," Lilly said, and grabbed him in turn.

Sirius blushed red to the tips of his ears. "Look, Harry-"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Spare me, I already knew."

James clapped Sirius on his back and grinned. "That's the spirit, own up to your sins. Anyway, I need to get going."

"Be safe!" Cried Lilly.

"Count on it. I've got three Death Eaters to torment."

Lilly nodded and grinned toothily. "Make them hurt."

"I'll do what I can," said James, and he walked briskly to clear the wards before apparating away.

Lilly had a far away look on her face for a moment, but recovered swiftly, turning to Harry and hugging him close.

"Come inside, I want a look at my little boy."

Harry snorted. "I'm mostly alright, honest."

"I'm sure you are, or the Healers wouldn't have let you go."

Sirius followed them with an awkward gait.

"Oh, calm down Sirius. Harry doesn't think any less of you for our relationship."

Sirius frowned at her.

"I still can't believe you two," he said sullenly, closing the front door. (Mew!)

"Cheer up, Padfoot. I still love you."

"See?" Lilly said brightly. "No need for that look on your face."

"You three," Sirius said, then. "I can't believe all three of you."

Harry shook his head. Adult things, indeed.

* * *

Harry slipped atop a bar stool and waved Sirius over to join him while Lilly filled the kettle from her wand. No doubt the House Elves were watching jealously, but such was their lot in life. Sometimes the family liked to do their own house keeping.

"So," Harry said, "attack of opportunity, or did they know we were coming?"

Sirius shrugged and watched Lilly move around the kitchen, his eyes firmly glued to her rump. "'Coulda been waiting. We were bound to visit the alley sometime."

"But that's not really likely, is it?"

Lilly placed a plate of coconut cookies in front of them both. "A traitor at work, maybe. James was thrilled that Harry finally decided to get a proper wand."

Harry took out his wand and placed it on the counter top, then grabbed a cookie.

Lilly picked up his wand and hefted it, rolling it along her palm. "What is it made of, dear?"

"Phoenix feather and holly," he said, spilling crumbs as he spoke.

"Chew first," Sirius admonished around his own cookie.

"Pot, kettle. Black."

Lilly swatted Harry on his head and took a cookie for herself.

They munched in companionable silence.

"You know," Harry said eventually, "today was pretty interesting."

Lilly swatted him on the head again.

* * *

Harry stepped inside his room and closed his door firmly.

If the remaining Death Eaters wanted to play, it was time the Master of Death, retired though he might be, got his hand back in the game.

He locked the door with a half remembered charm. It shimmered briefly, then smoked a little. He tried the door. It did not budge. So he'd gotten it half right, then.

His wand rumbled in his hand, and he swung it viciously. A jet of flame roared out the end and singed the ceiling.

He blinked and looked at his wand very carefully. He'd never done that by accident before.

"Good wand," he said cheerily. He liked the notion that it could set things on fire without a word, yes he did.

Pocketing the wand, he flipped open the lid on his toy chest.

At the bottom of this chest sat a notebook he'd gone to great lengths to find. It was an old sort of book, bound in leather and looking an awful lot like the moldy old tome any dark wizard worth their salt kept on hand for sinister moments just like these.

This book detailed the ritual he'd used to bind his parents spirits to this world.

He opened it to a page he'd long ignored.

It detailed, in a halting and spidery script, exactly how to breach the barrier between this world and the things that watched. It came with a hand drawn diagram of a magical array that looked awfully similar to Lilly's burst of inspiration in the cellar. It was also effectively the end of the book. Further pages were stained a muddy brown.

If he was even half right, the things would soon make their appearance.

Harry smiled to himself. They were just in time. Voldemort likely wasn't behind this little skirmish, but there was no doubt that he was out there. Plotting his plots and scheming his schemes, waiting for Harry to come out of hiding. It seemed that he wouldn't need to hide for much longer.

Cackling as he did, he sat down at his small desk and began to pen a letter.

"Dear Headmaster Dumbledore," he began, then paused. Hand over the wand and nobody gets hurt? Nah, too cliche. He'd get his paws on the Elder Wand eventually, even if he had to wait for Voldemort to catch up with the man himself.

Instead, he wrote a short inquiry into the mans health and the state of his school. That seemed friendly enough.

"Hoping to visit, Harry." He ended it with a flourish.

What Harry needed, was some freedom to operate. A visit to Hogwarts might provide just that.

* * *

Harry walked in on Lilly snogging Sirius senseless on the living room floor. The poor man looked like he'd been tackled to the ground.

She caught his eyes and winked. The effect was rather like trading a knowing look with a lizard.

Choosing to honor the better part of valor, he retreated to the den.

"Brick!"

Brick appeared at his feet.

"Yes mister Potter sir!" he saluted and stood at attention.

Harry looked at him. Brick was getting more formal by the day. "I have a letter for Headmaster Dumbledore. Could you have it delivered for me?"

"Yes sir, mister Potter sir! Absolutely, sir!"

Harry handed over the letter gingerly, lest the elf bite his fingers in a fit of worship.

Brick snatched it up and held it as if it were liable to explode.

"Have I offended you recently, Brick?"

"No, mister Potter sir!"

"Never mind, Brick. Go on, then."

"Thank you, mister Potter sir!"

Harry tuned the elf out while he snapped the name of another elf and barked out the order for his mail delivery. Brick was good at delegation.

* * *

James was plainly frustrated.

"They didn't know a damned thing," he groused over dinner, sitting on the couch with a plate on his lap.

Sirius sipped his coffee on the love seat and pointedly refrained from looking anywhere in Lilly's direction. "Well they sure as hell had a bead on us."

"Well it turns out they weren't even proper death eaters. Common thugs from the other alleys with masks on, is all."

Harry felt a sour expression cross his face. "A bit vicious about it for thugs. They did kill a man."

"That's the thing, they weren't the ones who did that bit. They were already waiting outside Ollivanders for you."

Sirius looked embarrassed. "Oh," he said.

"Don't worry about it, Sirius. For all they knew we might have made a bee line for the apparition point instead."

Lilly slinked over and patted Sirius on his knee.

"Don't worry," she repeated.

Sirius flushed a deeper red and glanced at Harry.

Harry just smiled at him.

Lilly giggled.

"I sent a letter to Dumbledore," Harry announced.

James looked at him suspiciously. "Oh?"

"I figure I might as well visit Hogwarts."

Lilly looked delighted. "Oh! Thats a marvelous idea!"

"Its a terrible idea. He's safe here."

"And he wouldn't be safe at Hogwarts?"

"Not even a little bit." James said flatly.

Sirius was inclined to agree. "Safe is not what I'd call that place."

Harry had prepared for this. "Look, you lot want me out of the house anyway. I might as well go somewhere interesting. The students aren't nearly as much of a threat as their parents are, anyway."

Lilly looked entirely too sly for anyones good. "I see Sirius warned you."

James still looked unhappy. "At least the kids aren't so good at cutting curses."

"It all depends on Dumbledore, anyway. I don't know that he'd want me there, after we went to all the trouble of registering me as a home schooled wizard in the first place."

"He'll snap up the chance to have you around, I'm sure," said James. "The old goat is a sucker for good press."

Lilly nodded. "He'll have you, Harry. The only trouble will be convincing him to let go once you're done."

Harry got the sense, sometimes, that Lilly knew an awful lot more about him than she let on. This was one of those times. He smiled uncomfortably.

Lilly stretched like a cat and sauntered over to give him a bone crushing hug.

* * *

James caught up with Harry in his room.

He rapped his knuckles on the door as he walked in, and Harry looked up from his desk. He'd been reading one of Lilly's old Charms textbooks.

"Yes?"

James held up a shimmering bundle of cloth.

"You'll be needing this," said James.

"Your invisibility cloak? Are you sure?" Harry asked, delighted.

"Don't ask me why, but it likes you one hell of a lot more than it likes me."

"Ah." This made a certain degree of sense.

"One of those things I'm better off not worrying about, right son?"

Harry nodded. "You could say that."

James handed the cloak to Harry. "You know, Harry, you can trust us."

"I do trust you, dad. More than you know."

"Alright, that's all I wanted to say."

"Hey," Harry said when James turned to leave. "When you try Lilly's ritual, just remember that I love you both. No matter what happens."

James smiled wryly. "I will."


	7. Chapter 7

Sirius barked at him when he arrived at Gordric's Hollow.

"Hey Padfoot!" Harry said brightly.

Sirius ran over and stepped around him in a circle before sneezing back into human form. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked gruffly.

Harry pulled his cloak off and folded it. "Out and about, why?"

"Next time, you're taking me along." Sirus's tone brooked no argument, but Harry was feeling cheeky.

"My cloak is only big enough for one," He pointed out.

"I'm not the one with a mark on his head. I don't _need_ to be invisible. Whats more, I do know how to make do without a fancy cloak, even if the effect isn't so good."

"Fair point."

Sirius sighed. "So you're going to meet the Headmaster?"

"Yup."

"Well? What did you really want from him? You're not just visiting for fun."

Harry grinned. "I'm asking him to take me on as a teacher's assistant while I go on the warpath."

"Oh hell. The seventh years aren't going to take well to that."

"Fame can buy anything," Harry said sagely, "Even respect."

"You've had your wand a week."

"And it's been a busy week."

"Harry, really? You want to do this? You could stay here, it's safe enough."

Harry rounded on Sirius and snarled, "If someone wants me dead, they're going to have to work for it. I'm not staying put while they're after me."

"You're going to be open to attack from all sides."

"I know that. But I'd rather take them on the field than defend a fortress."

A brass lion slunk up and nipped at the hem of Harry's robe.

"No, shoo."

It glowered at him and nuzzled Sirius instead.

"Hoosa best little lion? Yes you are. Yes you are!" Sirius crowed, kneeling and rubbing its ears.

Harry sneered, looking down at the display. "I don't know how you stand the things."

Sirius looked up and grinned at him. "You're just jealous that they love me."

* * *

Sitting at the kitchen bar, Harry crinkled a letter in his fist and glared at nothing in particular. Albus was playing with him.

"Dear Tom," he'd begun. Tom, as if Harry was just Voldemort's little clone.

To be entirely fair, it wasn't as if Harry had done much to bely that perception on the old man's part, but it still annoyed him.

Harry took a deep breath. Fine. That was fine. He'd roll with it. For all he knew, the scar on his head really was yet again a functioning Horcrux of sorts. He'd just pretend he was only half possessed. Albus would like that. It had a ring of redemption to it.

If only he knew the truth. Harry smirked. Best not to tell. Old Albus could be a stickler for rules, and knowing Harry was from a possible future would just upset him.

"Harry, dear?"

Harry was broken from his musings by Lily, who'd been staring at him for some time.

"Yes, mum?"

"You look like you need a hug," she said firmly.

"I'm fine, mum."

"No." She shook her head. "Hug!"

"Muuuuum."

She held her arms out. "Hug!"

Harry gave up and hugged.

* * *

Harry donned his invisibility cloak at the appointed hour and slipped out the front door, ignoring the mewling of the door kitten as he went. The brass lions regarded his passage balefully, but made no movement to stop him.

Harry was on a mission.

He stepped past the wards and breathed the cool night air before gathering up his magic in a knot.

A one, a two, he squeezed his eyes shut, and, "Three!"

Nothing happened for a long moment, and he opened one eye suspiciously.

The world turned upside down.

He appeared three feet above Hogsmeade's apparition point and landed in a crumpled, unhappy heap.

"Ow," he muttered, dragging his arm out from under his leg.

"Another day, another splinch," commented a passing wizard, looking at his plainly visible foot with disdain.

Harry stood, and his foot vanished.

At least the ground was relatively clean. Apparition points were generally kept clear of detritus, as having litter underfoot tended to cause people to break various bits.

He gripped his wand in his pocket and cast a muffled cleaning charm anyway, feeling it throb under his grip. The wand plainly required more time to break in.

His destination was the dragons den itself. Albus' office. He might have used the family floo and gone directly, but it was locked down tight and only allowed a few select destinations. As it was, he'd just use the floo in the pub.

Sirius and his parents both would have a conniption when he told them he'd gone off on his own again, no doubt.

* * *

Harry stumbled out of the floo in the teacher's lounge on fire and smelling strongly of singed hair.

"Mister Potter!" The chief student wrangler, one miss Mcgonagall, was proving as excitable as ever. "What have you done with yourself? Honestly- _Aquamenti!"_

Harry sputtered under the spray of water from her wand and batted at his robes until they stopped smoldering. "Thanks, really, I'm fine," the water let up, "I'm fine."

"You are an absolute mess," she said flatly.

Harry smiled lopsidedly and pawed at his face. His hand came away black with soot, and he wiped it on his soaked trouser leg before casting yet another cleaning charm and a drying charm for good measure. "Yeah, I know. His office, right?"

Mcgonagall nodded her head firmly. "This way, if you would, mister Potter," she said, leading the way to Albus's pet gargoyle.

"The school was in an uproar over the attack in the alley," she said as they walked.

Harry shrugged and rubbed his forearms. They were still covered in tiny pockmarks. "Nasty business, but we got out alright."

"The students wish you well, mister Potter. You're something of a hero to them."

"I'm not really a hero, miss, it's just a hobby."

She pressed her lips together at that comment as they neared the gargoyle.

"Cocoa pops," she said, and the gargoyle shuffled aside. "I'll leave you here."

"Right. I'll just let myself in, yeah?" Harry strode past the woman and shouldered the door to Albus' ever so plush office.

He looked around and sniffed. Nobody was inside, but that didn't keep the room from oozing presence. It was heavy on decoration and no small amount of gold leaf. This was the office of the Chief of the wizengamot. The man who kept things moving, shaking or at least quivering in wizarding Britain despite all odds. In another time they'd been friends.

He sat on the plush guest chair and got ready for a wait. It wasn't like Albus to be late, but when he was, it was usually for a good reason.

Harry looked up at the sound of shouting.

"He'll tear the castle down around our ears!" That would be dear old Severus, if his ears weren't doing him a disservice.

"Now, Severus, surely you don't want to alarm our guest," he heard through the door.

"Guest!?"

Furious whispering followed, and Harry heard the Gargoyle shuffle back into place.

Albus opened the door and breezed past Harry.

"Good evening, Tom," he said, giving Harry a measuring look as he seated himself.

"I'm not Riddle-" Harry began.

"Would you care to share a drink?" Albus interrupted him.

Harry blinked at him owlishly. "Please," he said.

"Fire whiskey, I think." Albus waved his wand, and a bottle and two glasses flicked out of a drawer to land before him.

He uncorked the bottle and poured for them both before sliding a glass over to Harry.

"Cheers," he said, holding his glass aloft.

"Cheers," Harry replied.

They both took a measured sip.

"Voldemort's name isn't a mystery to you."

"No, it's not. And please, call me Harry." Harry looked Albus square in the eyes and continued, "I think you'll find that we're actually on the same side-"

"Is that so?" Albus twinkled. It was a dangerous sort of twinkle, Harry knew. There were knives behind those eyes.

"I know things," he said, taking another sip of his whiskey. "That I'm a Horcrux, for one. I know you don't like that I know it, and I know you're afraid that I'm the next dark lord in the making. You think I'm a threat."

Albus's eyebrows raised themselves to his hairline. "You are correct, Harry. I don't like it. But my preferences are quite immaterial to you, aren't they?"

Harry sighed. "You would have ridden me like a horse if I'd gone to Hogwarts."

"Your refusal was all the proof I needed that you were dangerous. Furthermore, I've seen your test results."

"Those were supposed to be private," Harry groused.

"And you were supposed to be a normal child, but we can't all have our way, can we?"

"Fair point. You were right, I am dangerous," said Harry. "But I'm not a danger to you, or your students. I'm a danger to Tom."

Albus shook his head. "Even if you aren't Tom, you _are_ his lifeline."

"Just one of them."

"Excuse me?"

"One. Of. Them. I'm not the only Horcrux, and I don't want Tom to come back. Is that clear enough for you?"

Albus sipped his drink and sighed heavily.

"It appears that you have me at a disadvantage, Harry."

Harry smiled. "I'm going to share some information with you free of charge."

Albus perked up. "Oh?"

"Two years ago the school was nearly shut down, yes?"

"The disappearance of miss Ginerva Weasely."

"I was the one who tipped you off about the Chamber."

Albus blinked. "You did?"

Harry smiled at him. "Did you fight the basilisk?"

"It fled when I arrived. Being the headmaster has its perks, when it comes to the secret places of the school."

"Then you found the diary?" Harry pressed.

"Miss Weasley's diary? Yes. It was filled with the scribblings of a schizophrenic," Albus said.

Harry felt a complex expression sidle across his face, and opened his mouth only to close it again. This was Not Good. This was, in fact, Very Bad. He opened his mouth again and inquired further, "It wasn't a blank, heavily enchanted, reeking of black magic, ink eating . . . Sentient diary? You're quite certain?"

"The only diary to be found, Harry, was the one laying beside her body."

Harry was feeling stressed. "She did survive, yes? The Prophet reported that she survived."

"Barely. It was a very close thing."

"Shit."

"Are you going to explain yourself, or must I grasp at straws? You are suggesting that the diary is another Horcrux, but it is no such thing."

"It was a Horcrux. Was. You were too late. I didn't expect that. I thought you'd interrupted him when it came out she survived."

Albus frowned deeply. "Voldemort has already returned, then."

"Not necessarily Voldemort himself. But Tom Riddle the schoolboy? He's probably back. The diary was his first horcrux, the youngest of them all. I'm the eldest."

Harry and Albus sat in silence for a while and pondered this.

"How many are there, Harry?"

"Seven in all, counting the diary."

"Six Horcruxes remain, and one has declared itself Tom's enemy. Interesting."

Harry scrunched his nose at that comment and swirled his ice cubes around. They looked a bit mournful floating like that, so he took another sip of his whiskey. It tasted like a bear's arse. "Tom junior is a problem."

Albus leaned back in his chair. "Do you recall the story of Pandora's Box, Harry?"

"Before my time, but yes."

"And mine. But to me, Harry, you are one such box. And frankly, I am afraid of what I might find if I were to trust you."

Harry smirked at him. "Liar, you really want to know."

Albus raised an eyebrow and creaked back into a hunched position. "Allow me to rephrase, I don't want to know badly enough to live with whatever you do."

"How bad could it be?"

"Well," Harry got the sense that this was a stupid question, "you might force me to kill you."

"Oh." Definitely a stupid question. Harry smiled weakly. "Is that likely?"

"It is much less likely than it was when I walked in." Albus picked up his glass and waved it expressively as he talked, "Your parents are still a matter of great concern to me. I don't know what was done to them, but they still, as you say, reek of black magic. There was a reason behind their expulsion from . . ."

"Your Order of the Phoenix, yes."

"Quite so."

"You kept Sirius, though. Why?"

"I trust him to keep an eye on them."

"Funny, that's exactly what I trust him for as well." Albus, thought Harry, had good taste in lackeys.

"Sirius answers to me, you know," said Harry.

"I will bear that in mind."

"Look, I'm coming to you in good faith. I'm in danger, my parents are in danger, Sirius and Remus are both in danger, and frankly, so are you. Someone, be he Tom junior or some Death Eater with a grudge has declared war on me, and I'm not yet in a position where I can fight back without rubbing the public the wrong way."

"You are very mindful of public opinion for someone without plans for world domination."

Harry squinted at the hazy ceiling. "I said I'm Tom's enemy. I didn't say I'm stupid."

"You will be bringing this threat to my school."

"You wanted me there in the first place, vengeful Death Eaters and all."

"I may have been mistaken."

Ouch.

"Is that your answer, then?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"No. I want assurances."

"I won't hurt your students, sir."

"I imagine not. My fear is what you will teach them."

"No teaching?" Harry was disappointed. He liked teaching.

Albus gave him a measuring look. "Dark magic has no place at Hogwarts."

This gave Harry pause. "Really? You're alright with me visiting as long as I don't turn them dark?"

"Don't sound so surprised, Harry, you'll make me think twice."

"I always wanted to be a teacher," Harry said brightly.

Albus's ruddy features turned slightly pale, "Tom had similar aspirations."

"Did he," Harry marveled. Professor Riddle. There was a thought.

"You worry me, Harry."

Harry grinned. "That's your job, worrying."

Albus huddled forward, and Harry huddled to match.

"I'm willing to take you on as a teacher's assistant as you suggested in your letter," Albus said, "but unless you want me to hide them, your parents will need to fend for themselves."

"Godric's Hollow is a fortress, they'll be fine. The trouble is that I need mobility. I can't be stuck there while Tom is out playing his little games."

"And you'd like to find the other Horcruxes."

"Unless Tom senior is already back and retrieved them, or they activated by themselves like the diary, I know where most of them are."

Albus raised an inquiring brow. "Do you."

Harry sheepishly tapped his scar.

"I see," said Albus, plainly not quite convinced. "In any case, I am prepared to look the other way if, and only if, you involve me in their disposal. And do I trust you intend to destroy them."

"I'm not going to be collecting them just to have the whole set, sir."

Albus nodded.

"You will have your own room in the castle, and a laboratory."

"That's very generous of you."

Albus took a deep breath. "I will be observing you closely. You will warn me before you traipse around the countryside. You will not be seen leaving the castle. You will report to me any Death Eater activity you uncover. And you will not attack my students unless they attack you first. You will be expected to help some of my professors with their lessons during school hours. Is this arrangement acceptable?"

A long silence passed between the two, and Albus poured another portion for them both.

"Fine," Harry said at last, "but this is open to negotiation. Again, I'm not your enemy. I want to work with you on this."

"I find myself willing to take that on faith."

Harry smiled. "I knew you wanted to know what was inside."

"Mind the consequences of your actions, Harry."

Albus blinked, then looked to the door. "I believe we have a visitor . . ."

Harry grabbed his wand. It throbbed in his palm.

The door slammed open and Mcgonagall rushed in, holding a burnt out howler in her hand. "Albus! Hogsmeade is burning!"

Both Albus and Harry were taken aback by this. Surely a village of wizards could handle a fire?

"Burning, my dear?"

"Yes!" She waved her arms animatedly, "Burning! Smoke! Fire!"

Harry tapped the side of his head. "Are they wizards or not?"

Albus stood and jabbed his wand at the window. It blurred, and then displayed a view from an entirely different perspective. It showed the village in the distance, with plumes of black smoke rising overhead. As Harry watched, he could swear he saw sinister shapes dancing in the sky.

"Fiendfyre," Harry breathed.

"Quite so."

Harry made his decision. "I'm game if you are, Albus."

"What? Mister Potter-"

"Mister Potter is eminently qualified to help contain the situation," Albus said smoothly.

"But-"

"And your help will be invaluable. Please gather the other professors and have them fly to assist. Severus and Poppy will undoubtedly require some steady handed seventh years to aide them in gathering their supplies, as well. Have the prefects lock down the school."

"I. Yes. You're right. I'll fetch them immediately." She swept out of the room.

"_Accio brooms_."

A pair of Cleansweeps flew in through the window, and Albus grabbed them both before handing one to Harry.

"I never fly sober if I can help it," Albus muttered, stepping up onto the window sill.

Harry followed him, smiling grimly. "Lets see if we can't catch a death eater or two, eh?"

* * *

Albus careened through the air in the distinctive manner of a man who'd had more than a tipple of Firewhiskey. Harry followed him down, skimming the grass with his boots before zooming up into the sky to get a better view of the town.

An impossible claw shot out of a solid pillar of smoke to swipe a hole in a roof, which promptly caught fire. The wizards on the ground cast flame freezing charms, but more flames licked up despite their efforts.

Harry fished a mirror out of his inner robe pocket and tapped it with his wand as he flew.

"Cub!" Sirius looked worried, and Harry heard his mother shouting in the background.

"Padfoot! Hey, listen. I've got a problem."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Turns out Hogsmeade is on fire. Fiendfyre, actually. I'm with the headmaster, but I have no idea how many Death Eaters are waiting for us. I solemnly swear I'm up up to my ears in shit. We're gonna need help."

"Help is on the way, Pup. Keep the mirror on, we'll be there."

Albus sped up, taking the Cleansweep to the limit it could give and then some. Harry wasn't about to be left behind, and he gripped the broom in both hands, willing it to go faster.

Someone was about to have a very bad day, and he dearly hoped it wasn't him.


	8. Chapter 8

Been a while since I looked at this story! I still think it is cute, so lets play with it some more, shall we?

* * *

Harry, not interested in being shot out of the sky, swooped low and hovered for a moment, before producing his trusty cloak from an inner pocket.

Not-So-Limited invisibility was a wonderful thing.

Dumbledore didn't bother with anything of the sort, he wasn't interested in subterfuge, and instead Harry saw a shimmering globe appear around the man and his broom.

Useful magic, if you had the raw power to sustain it. It would detect and intercept incoming spells, redirecting them rather than blocking them entirely. A shield like that could take sheets of spell fire without failing.

Harry, still a growing boy, could not match that trick. Leastwise, not any more.

But he could do something his father would approve of. Harry zipped toward a house at the edge of town and started transfiguring potted plants. One, two, three, a dozen. Each of them took on, for the most part, the properties of iron. Some of them looked a bit rusty, and a handful stubbornly refused to change color at all, but Harry wasn't much fussed.

If he weren't accompanied by the head of the Wizengamot, he'd have made them with extra spikes on, but such was life. Waving his wand in a movement that was almost entirely superfluous, he dropped a seeker enchantment on them. Anyone wearing a white mask was now fair game.

He released the Death Eater seeking missiles, and a number of them flew up, some curved around the wall, and one determined example shot straight through the nearest window it could find.

Well then, Harry thought. Ah well, town on fire, what was a little collateral damage, eh?

He tilted his broom and moved to hover above the home's chimney, watching Dumbledore circle the town, dropping rocks below him as he went. These rocks, boulders really, likely had a specific set of runes carved on them. Just the thing for dousing unfriendly fire magic on a large scale. And likely a number of other things besides.

An explosion rocked the earth, and Harry's eyes were drawn to Rosemerta's pub.

The pub, as it happened, had survived the last war intact for a reason. It was a fortress . . . And someone had just blown the door off its hinges from the inside.

A squad of death eaters had struck camp out front, and were alternatively lobbing explosive curses at the front door and toying with a number of children they'd secured from the pre-school, taunting the wizards holed up within.

This, evidently, was not going over well.

The door was enchanted wood, and it cared very little for the reflexive shields that sprung up in front of the death eaters as it bounced along toward them.

Behind the door, Harry spotted a familiar blur sprinting behind it.

There went Remus, the fastest man he knew.

Someone, Sirius, Harry imagined, blew out the windows, and an army of enchanted furniture leaped out onto the square to do battle, followed by James, who was waving his wand like a conductor.

The bouncing door took a death eater down bodily, and Remus jumped on it before tackling another and jamming his wand in the poor man's eye. A red flash lit up his skull, and he fell, smoking from the ears.

A bar stool golem bounded past and pinned one poor man to a wall through his sternum.

A number of chairs got blown to splinters, but the stunners from Sirius' direction as he stepped through the doorway made up for their loss.

Harry smirked. Three. Two. One.

Six of his flower-bludgers homed in on the squad, and in short order three more of them were down, their masks shattered, and likely their faces, too.

Harry nosed his broom up a little and joined in the fun. "Bombarda," he intoned happily.

His spell shot straight, true, and explosive, scattering the survivors. Some of the children took the opportunity to bolt. Others hugged the ground where they'd fallen. Just as well.

One problem, he wasn't certain where the rest of his bludgers had gotten off to. That meant there were more Death Eaters around the town, possibly knocked out, possibly on the hunt. Impossible to say.

Harry cocked his head and smiled, watching a heroic Death Eater shoot a pair of planters out of the sky only to be kneecapped by a vase of roses and promptly set upon by a pair of tables. "Well, that wasn't so bad."

As he looked on, Dumbledore hovered above the centre of town, throwing a wave of stunning magic in the general direction of something Harry couldn't see, before he intoned a secret word that sprung a great orange dome of very white magic over the town.

It felt like egg yolk running down Harry's spine, and he shuddered. Nothing like the warm fuzzies of his preferred school, this.

Harry felt his remaining seeker enchantments fade, and decided to follow up.

He zipped over the main square, where more defenders from the pub were now levitating children inside.

"Move! Quickly!"

Well and good, but they weren't betting on the nice fellow in the white mask who was about to send something nasty their way from around a corner, were they?

Harry thrust his wand and immediately thought better of the curse he was about to attempt under Dumbledore's dome. "Bloody thing," he muttered. Instead, he flew down and stunned the man point blank. He fell face first with a meaty thump.

Some of the defenders noticed this.

"Hey! Someone got one there!" one shouted.

"Keep your shields up!" James snapped, sending a table to secure the man.

Harry just grinned and flew overhead. Too many wands laid on the ground. Dangerous, when the fallen could still reach them. "All for Harry," he said, sweeping his wand and reaching out his free hand to catch them.

A bundle landed neatly in his palm, and he juked to one side to avoid a stunner from the friendlies.

"Someone just took their wands!"

"They're not cursing us, so keep moving!"

Some of the children were fairly seriously injured, Harry noted. Limbs akimbo and spotted with blood, the Death Eaters obviously hadn't been playing nice. 'Course, being dropped from on high when Harry interrupted them likely hadn't done some of them any favors, either.

Harry nosed his broom to the sky, and noted that Dumbledore was still busy with his firefighting effort.

Harry squinted down at the pub, where a number of people were either staring out the windows uselessly or maintaining shield charms, depending on their area of expertise.

Now, whatever was dear mumsy up to?

All at once, a piercing shriek sounded in Harry's skull as his cursed scar tore itself open. The soothing dome in the sky cracked, then shattered, and a green flash lit up the interior of the pub. And even as he viciously jerked his broom to close the distance, the front wall bulged obscenely before exploding in a great wave that took the roof with it. A spray of shattered stone shot into the square with all the force and deadly effect of grape shot.

Someone was having a very bad day indeed. And looking down at the rubble where his family had been standing, he knew it was him.

Harry swooped over the building and hovered in a circle, staring down the at the young man standing in front of the floo, dressed smartly in a green shirt and black slacks.

Riddle Junior stepped out over the shattered hardwood and peered up at the sky as the remains of the dome shattered and puffed into clouds of free magic. Two death eaters exited the floo and flanked him. But, oddly, their masks were red. Harry's scar dribbled blood down his face.

"Brother!" Riddle exclaimed suddenly, looking around with a smile on his face. "There you are!"

Harry glared down and channelled a burst of magic into his handful of stolen wands, before hurling them at Riddle and company.

They exploded spectacularly, sending charged wood scything into what was left of the walls.

The smoke cleared abruptly with a gust of wind, and Riddle was revealed once more. This time, he was frowning. There was wood in his hair and he was looking a bit singed around the edges. One of his companions was dead, torn nearly in half. The other had shielded himself more effectively, and was merely missing the hem of his robe.

"If you're going to be like that . . ."

Harry brought his wand to his throat and threw his voice behind Riddle.

"What the hell do you want?"

Riddle grinned and kept looking vaguely at the sky, while his companion twitched and turned with alarm.

"Oh, the usual," he said, brushing his hand through his hair, before twitching his wand in a quick cleaning spell. "I just thought I'd drop by and see how this little squabble was going. I must say, I'm disappointed. No showdown? No battle of wills? Just… Proxies and furniture. Cute, but telling."

Harry had nothing to say. It was interesting that Riddle Junior was presenting himself as the third party here, which suggested that Senior, or yet another Horcrux, was behind the initial attack. Interesting, but not of as great importance to him as the bodies strewn outside the building.

"Leave, now, or this gets uglier," Harry said flatly, projecting his voice such that it seemed to come from a hundred directions at once.

Riddle laughed. "Uglier indeed! Very exact of you. Right, right. I'm finished here. Keep well, brother!"

Pop!

He, his companion, and their unfortunate fellow, were gone.

Harry hovered near the floor and dismounted his broom, looking around unhappily. There were a few intact bodies along the back walls, pieces and sad scraps of cloth, otherwise.

As he walked out of what was left of the silent pub with his broom under his arm, he saw a gaggle of aurors in the distance, picking their way through the rubble. A nostalgic sight.

Harry pulled off his cloak and sighed, pocketing it before raising his wand arm, ignoring the shouts from the aurors who spotted him.

He pointed at the pub and said one word: "Repairo."

The rubble behind him shifted, groaned and flew past him, reconstructing the building, and so cleared the square. Fresh moans and the occasional scream sounded from the few survivors as they were shifted or bruised by stone and wood.

Harry sagged, then. That took a lot of energy, and if there were yet another horcrux waiting in the wings, flying away would be his best option.

Where was Dumbledore, then?

In the distance, he saw a flight of broomsticks hovering in the sky from the direction of the school, plainly unsure as to whether to approach after seeing the pub destroyed. Three of them, professors by their robes, closed the gap briefly and surveyed the town before looping back. After some discussion, the entire flight made its way to join the aurors in the square.

"That was quite some magic, young man," said a nervous looking auror who dared to come near. Harry thumped his broom on the ground and leaned on it. "Yeah. You lot got medics on the way?"

"Right behind us," said the auror. "Um, I'm auror Mackie. You'd be Harry Potter, yeah?"

"Yup."

"Your father wants to speak to you."

Harry smiled lopsidedly. "Of course he does."


End file.
